The most common waterbed structure in use today is characterized by a bladder-like watermattress of soft flexible sheet plastic defining substantially flat horizontal top and bottom walls and vertical side and end walls. The watermattress is engaged in a frame structure with a horizontal platform and vertical side and end retaining boards that support and retain the bottom, side and end walls of the mattress. The mattress is filled with a sufficient volume of water so that it substantially fully occupies the space defined by the frame yet leaves the top wall sufficient slack so that it will yield and conform to the bodies of persons engaged and supported atop it to an extent that the bodies are buoyantly supported by the water therein, with the top wall of the mattress as a barrier therebetween.
In practice, ordinary watermattresses are close to 7' long and are 4 or more feet wide, while being only about 8" in vertical extent or depth.
In most waterbed structures the depth of the watermattresses, together with the slack that is afforded to the top walls thereof is such that the top walls are subject to bottoming out, that is, being displaced downwardly into stopped engagement with the bottom walls when excessive weight is concentrated at small areas of the top walls. The foregoing is subject to creating serious adverse effects.
In addition to the foregoing, when persons seek to position themselves atop waterbed mattresses and when they seek to move from position atop thereof, they shift and move their bodies to sitting positions at a side of the bed structure with their legs extended over and outward of an adjacent retaining board and with their "bottoms" engaged stop small areas at the sides of the top walls of the watermattresses. In such instances, the weight of the persons displace the mattresses downwardly to an extent that in order to extract themselves from within the mattresses becomes extremely difficult and burdensome. The foregoing is a major reason why many people find waterbeds undesirable.
In addition to the foregoing, for comfortable and effective rest when a person lies down, on his back, atop a watermattress it is important that the lower lumbar region of his back be held up and supported to a substantial extent in order to prevent serious adverse stressing and fatigue that can lead to great discomfort and other serious adverse effects. In the case of ordinary watermattresses, those portions of the mattresses that support the lower lumbar regions of the backs of users afford no more vertical support than any other regions or areas of the mattresses and tend to allow the heavy lower lumbar regions of the backs of the users to sink more deeply in the mattress, overstressing their lower backs and causing serious adverse effects. The foregoing adverse effects are most frequently experienced by elderly and middle-aged persons and by those persons who are less physically fit than those young physically fit persons who are now the principal users of waterbeds and find them to be satisfactory.
Finally in watermattresses of the general character referred to above, when persons engage their bodies thereon and when they move atop those mattresses they generate wave motion in the mattresses. The initial energy of such wave motion is often substantial and diminishes rather slowly as the waves move back and forth in the mattresses, rebounding from side to side thereof. Such wave action is, for many people, extremely disturbing and is the major objection that is expressed by those persons who find waterbeds unsatisfactory.
As a result of the above-noted shortcomings and objections to waterbeds, those who design, manufacture and sell waterbeds have, for many years, sought to eliminate or notably reduce wave motion in such mattresses and have sought to impart certain areas of such mattresses with greater vertical support than is supported in other areas thereof. To the above end, the marketplace is now proliferated with watermattresses with many different forms of baffle structures that are intended to eliminate wave motion, mattresses that are filled with various kinds and/or combinations of fibrous and foam-like materials intended to stop or reduce wave motion and/or to impart desired increased support in certain areas thereof. Other watermattresses that are found in the marketplace are sectional or cellular structures, while still other mattresses are what might be called hybrid mattress structures in which selected features of watermattresses and common mattresses are combined in an effort to overcome those features and characteristics of watermattresses that many people find objectionable.
In the case of each of the above-referred to enhanced watermattresses, claims are made that they eliminate and/or reduce one or more of the shortcomings that I have noted in the foregoing. While all of the above noted enhanced watermattresses provided by the prior art can be said to afford some desired and/or beneficial end results, the magnitude of those results is often minor. In those few instances where one shortcoming found to exist in common unenhanced watermattresses have been notably reduced to eliminated, some desirable aspect or feature of the watermattress is found to have been compromised to some notable extent.
In accordance with the foregoing, there still exists the need for new, improved and better watermattresses and the prior art has clearly left notable room for major improvements to be made.